Australian import managers' purchasing decision behaviour: An empirical study

Reports a pilot study of the relative importance of import decision variables as rated by Australian managers. A systematic sample qi 104 Australian managers representing different companies participated in the study. Australian importers rated product quality as the most important variable when importing products from overseas followed by long-term suppliers' dependability, product style/feature, price, and timely delivery. Australian managers who import consumer products find the domestic import duties and tariffs to be more important than did those who import industrial products. Larger volume importers regard the product brand name reputation to be more important than did those who import smaller volumes

Renting Goodwill in International Marketing Channels: An Analysis of Pricing Strategies and Bargaining Power

This paper investigates the pricing decisions of foreign manufacturers in international markets within a bargaining framework with asymmetric information and the rental of goodwill. The key findings are: first, the foreign manufacturer follows a mark-up pricing strategy in which its gross margin and the quality premium over the domestic product are shared with the importer. Second, a manufacturer–importer contract occurs only when the manufacturer’s bargaining power is within an admissible range which shrinks as transaction costs increase. Third, the domestic consumer will only purchase the foreign product if the importer’s goodwill in the domestic market is sufficiently large to signal quality. The paper contributes to the literature on exchange relationships between foreign manufacturers and importers. Copyright International Atlantic Economic Society 2005C70, D40, FO,

Research on Asian firms : a review and look forward

Asia has a population of approximately 3.5 billion people in over 30 nations spreading east from Europe and Africa, excluding the nations of the Middle East and the Caucasus, and substantive parts of Turkey and Russa. The economic influence of this region is expanding and growing stronger. With China and Japan as two of the world\u27s largest economies, the Four Tigers (i.e., Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan) as the newly industrialized economies, and India, another emerging economy, the GDP of this region is predicted to exceed that of the United States by 2050